Cruel Illusions by Margie Fuston

2 stars.

Age Recommendation: 13-16

I tried. I really did. I DNF'ed Cruel Illusions at around the 60% mark, long enough for me to know that the writing style, characters, and relationships between the characters were not appealing to me.

Cruel Illusions is vampires + vampire hunters + magicians. There's a magical castle-type location. There is an attempt at a found family. And there is a love triangle. A girl, Ava, seeks to avenge the death of her mother, who was killed by a vampire. Ava's mother and father were magicians, but after both their deaths, she and her brother are put into the foster system. Ava is still enchanted by magic and, at 18, she joins a magic troupe who also double as vampire hunters. But Ava must earn her spot as a vampire-hunter/magician in The Society, the group of troupes who wander the world entertaining audiences and killing vamps. To do that she must win a dangerous contest held at a magic castle. Through all this, she meets a diverse cast of characters, including Xander, a self-assured young magician with a distaste for shirts and green hair, and Roman, a brooding competitor who tries to warn her away from joining The Society.

Cruel Illusions is clearly YA, and the writing style leans on the young side. I went into the book knowing that. As such, I'm reviewing this understanding that this book was meant for someone around the age of 13-16. That said, teenagers--especially teenage readers--should be afforded more credit than the author is giving them with this book. The author doesn't seem to trust the reader to know what to feel or think about the world or characters. She is intent on telling you, over and over, exactly what you should be thinking. In great detail.

The story is told in the first person by Ava, and Ava over-explains everything, often repeating herself. She not only tells you what she feels, she tells you why she is feeling it and the circumstances that led to her being the type of person that would feel this way in this particular circumstance. When she sees Xander or Roman, two of the points on that love triangle, Ava will tell you how they compare, why that comparison is good or bad, and whether she likes those attributes or not. The book never shows you anything; it tells you everything. Because of that, the reader doesn't get to think for themselves. They don't get to discover any of the characters because the author tells you up front exactly what you should know about the characters and why that's important to the story.

To give an example of how you can show rather than tell, let's say that you have a brooding, quiet male main character. He doesn't say much, and so the reader doesn't know much about him. In one scene, however, the protagonist walks into his bedroom and finds several beautiful works of art, depicting bright colors and movement. She sees paintbrushes and canvases scattered around the room haphazardly. There are also books piled high in corners. What we've learned without the author telling us that this quiet, brooding character is probably an artist that has a side to him that can create these beautiful, bright works. He's a reader. He's a thinker.

Alternatively, if this scene was in Cruel Illusions (it's not, but work with me here), Ava would walk into Roman's room. She would describe the room as above. But then, we'd get this inner monologue: "Clearly, Roman is an artist that has a bright side to him. He loves colors and because of this, he's probably not completely dark and brooding. I also see that he is a reader, and if those are fiction books, then maybe he needs escapism or maybe he's interested in other worlds and other lives. He's a very talented painter. I knew a talented painter once who was also the brooding type and he was a good person. Roman must be a good person."

Whether or not you agree with Ava in any aspect of that monologue, you as the reader are being told what to think about Roman rather than being allowed to discover him on your own.

If this happened once in awhile, I probably could have finished the book, but this type of over-explanation happens constantly. Ava even self-analyzes herself so often that you don't really get to discover her either. Because of this, the characters felt flat for me. There was no build or anticipation that comes with learning about the world and characters. You just learn something because Ava told you it was so. Even the magic castle felt ho hum and dull. There was no wonder to any of the magic. It just... was there.

Ava had very little chemistry with either Xander or Roman. She tells you over and over that she's attracted to both of them and why. She'll tell you why she's conflicted. And there will be kisses, but the kisses hold no excitement because it felt like Ava was giving you a primer on the potential kiss prior to the kiss. Then the kiss happens and because you knew it would, it just is.

There are other issues--Ava is not a particularly interesting character. A lot of her reactions and feelings are wrapped up in the abandonment she felt as a foster child. This in and of itself makes sense. But since Ava is constantly psycho-analyzing herself as to how her foster upbringing makes her act or feel a certain way--and when I say constant, I mean constant--her abandonment issues become a plot device for the overall story rather than adding complexity to her as a character.

In the end, I found I didn't care what happens to any of the characters. I don't think this is because I'm an adult reading a YA book; I think this is because this is a YA book unwittingly talking down to even its younger readers. Add to that the fact that there is an attempt to throw in an oversized number of plot devices and tropes and you have a book where there is too much explained and not enough actually happening.

I have read some spoilers as to what occurs after the point in which I DNF'ed, and it's not enough to make me want to keep going. It's sad because I have a special edition of this book that is really beautiful. I wanted to like it. I wish I did.